Narrative:

Flight from ord was parked at the concourse end and nearly perpendicular. After boarding was complete and all doors were closed; communication was established with the tug driver via interphone. All communications were standard between the driver and me. The first officer called ramp control for clearance to push and we were immediately given permission to push. There are no other communication procedures outlined in the ord briefing page for this gate. The tug began to move us and swing our tail to our left into the alley between concourses. It seemed to me that the push was following a normal pattern for that gate. When we had the aircraft swung around and continued to move in the alley the tug driver asked me if I saw the 777 on taxiway a moving from west to east on our right side. At that point the first officer and I looked up and saw a B777 moving down taxiway a at what I can only describe as an excessive speed. It was obvious that the 777's left wing tip was overlapping both our cockpit and the tug. The 777 made no attempt to stop or even slow down and their left wing tip passed over the top or our cockpit. At this point the nose of our aircraft was over the hold line for the alley to taxiway a. The pushback was completed behind the hold line and the engines were started and we departed. I did ask the ramp controller if he had seen the incident and he said he had. He also said he would try to find our who had been taxiing the 777. This happened so fast that we did not get the nose number off the 777 before it had moved down taxiway a out of our sight. My concern is that either there needs to be additional communication for aircraft pushing off the concourse end to coordinate with traffic on taxiway a; or the push crew had gotten us too far out in the process of the push. Looking at the location of the gate and where we were throughout the push; I don't believe the path we followed was too wide or the turn in the alley was made too late. It did not appear to me that the 777 did anything to account for our presence and at the speed they were moving there was nothing we could do to warn them. We were on ramp control and they were with ground control. The 777 crew should have stopped and waited for us to clear behind the hold line before continuing on to their gate. I don't believe they even knew where their wingtip was in relation to our position. If we had been in a 757 instead of an MD80 there would have been major damage and probably severe injuries involved.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: MD80 Captain reports being pushed off the end of a concourse in ORD coordinating only with Ramp Control. During the push the nose of the aircraft crossed the Taxiway A hold line and conflicted with a B777 taxiing by.

Narrative: Flight from ORD was parked at the concourse end and nearly perpendicular. After boarding was complete and all doors were closed; communication was established with the tug driver via interphone. All communications were standard between the driver and me. The First Officer called ramp control for clearance to push and we were immediately given permission to push. There are no other communication procedures outlined in the ORD briefing page for this gate. The tug began to move us and swing our tail to our left into the alley between concourses. It seemed to me that the push was following a normal pattern for that gate. When we had the aircraft swung around and continued to move in the alley the tug driver asked me if I saw the 777 on Taxiway A moving from West to East on our right side. At that point the First Officer and I looked up and saw a B777 moving down Taxiway A at what I can only describe as an excessive speed. It was obvious that the 777's left wing tip was overlapping both our cockpit and the tug. The 777 made no attempt to stop or even slow down and their left wing tip passed over the top or our cockpit. At this point the nose of our aircraft was over the hold line for the alley to Taxiway A. The pushback was completed behind the hold line and the engines were started and we departed. I did ask the Ramp Controller if he had seen the incident and he said he had. He also said he would try to find our who had been taxiing the 777. This happened so fast that we did not get the nose number off the 777 before it had moved down Taxiway A out of our sight. My concern is that either there needs to be additional communication for aircraft pushing off the concourse end to coordinate with traffic on Taxiway A; or the push crew had gotten us too far out in the process of the push. Looking at the location of the gate and where we were throughout the push; I don't believe the path we followed was too wide or the turn in the alley was made too late. It did not appear to me that the 777 did anything to account for our presence and at the speed they were moving there was nothing we could do to warn them. We were on Ramp Control and they were with Ground Control. The 777 crew should have stopped and waited for us to clear behind the hold line before continuing on to their gate. I don't believe they even knew where their wingtip was in relation to our position. If we had been in a 757 instead of an MD80 there would have been major damage and probably severe injuries involved.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.